An empirical formulation for predicting the dynamic ultimate strength of rectangular plates under in-plane compressive loading

This paper presents the extensive non-linear finite element (FE) analysis of the dynamic ultimate strength of the ship plate structures under uniaxial compressive load. An empirical formula for predicting the dynamic ultimate compressive strength of ship plates, expressed in terms of the geometric dimensions of plates and impact speeds, was developed by curve fitting of FE results of 561 ship plates. The dynamic ultimate strength of a tested specimen is calculated based on the nonlinear finite element method, and the comparison with test results show the applicability of the present numerical method. The comparison between the proposed empirical formulation and the FEM results of 561 ship plates show the accuracy of curve fitting. The formula implicitly includes the effect of initial imperfections with an average level. The proposed formula was also applied to the outer bottom plates of container ships and oil tanker and a satisfactory agreement between the proposed formula and FE results was obtained.